Panentheism

Panentheism literally is "pan en theos," which means that "all [is] in God."

There are panentheist theories that are not consistent with the Catholic concept of God because, like pantheism, they confuse creation with the Creator, as if what is made is part of its Maker.

I use this word to remind myself that it is wrong to imagine that the universe stands in the way of God or comes "between" us and God the way a wall comes between the inside and outside of a house. God comes first. The universe is created in God. The problem is not so much to picture how God comes into the universe as to picture how the universe is in God.

Colossians 1:15-17

¹⁵ He is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation.

¹⁶ For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth,
the visible and the invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers;
all things were created through him and for him.

¹⁷ He is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.

¹⁸ He is the head of the body, the church.
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things he himself might be preeminent.

¹⁹ For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell,

²⁰ and through him to reconcile all things for him,
making peace by the blood of his cross
[through him], whether those on earth or those in heaven.

We "we live and move and have our being" in God (Acts 17:28).

It is not so much that God is in the universe as that the universe is in God.

Links

• Tzimtzum: In the act of creation, God makes room within Himself for creatures to exist.